EVE General Discussion

Heh.

"Nerfing T3's"

Look CCP, I sincerely hope that you realize that T3's do not need a nerf, particularly with the BS rebalance. There are virtually no situations outside of gang boosting (which I concede should be rebalanced so CS ships are better than T3's), where T3's are the best ship for the job.

Tengu used to be great for missioning, but that was due to heavy missiles being overpowered. Furthermore, it was also due to large missile weapon systems being hilariously terrible (and technically still are, though the cruise change is a step in the right direction).

The Legion, Loki, and Proteus have never been good ships outside of very niche roles (i.e. heavy tackle proteus, or armor web loki) in fleets, where they simply fill a role that their counterparts (huginn/lach) cannot fill because the huginn and lach do not have the low slots available to field a suitable armor tank.

In any sort of small gang pvp, T3's are in most cases outclassed by other ships in terms of price/effectiveness as well as how "scary" they are considered. 100mn AB tengus used to be the exception, but again, this was because, one, heavy missiles were very good, and two, nobody knew how to deal with them. Nowadays, nobody flies the setup because it's impossible without getting instantly countered by a rapier/huginn. People have adapted.

I feel that a general nerf towards T3's would simply make them even less used than they are now, and that an appropriate balance pass on T3's would actually involve buffing the subsystems that are trash on the ships right now to make them more viable in roles outside of the extremely niche ones the have right now. Ultimately the design of T3's to be a "jack of all trades" and thus cost more will never be one that players will buy into simply because it is more convienent to buy a number of hacs/BC's and have them in your hangar rather than buy a bunch of new subsystems and mods to refit the T3 multiple times (not to mention you can't change the rigs).

T3's shouldn't be balanced around the fact that they can do multiple things, because they cannot swap these things on the fly. T3's offer barely any advantage at the moment and essentially fill the heavy recon role in most cases. Nerfing this aspect will simply cause them to never be used. I would never choose to use a ship that was not ideal for the scenario. I would simply buy the best ship for each job I needed and then swap as required. IF I needed multiple T3 setups, I would not buy one T3 and bring subsystem changes, I would simply buy two T3's.

Despite the fact that I've said this multiple times in many other posts, I suspect CCP won't agree, and I can only hope that HACs are buffed enough to be usuable and I can just forget T3's altogether. Becuase frankly it's a stupid ship class. I mean, SP loss? What a joke, they're not even worth the risk at the moment and the only reason I use them is because they fill a role no other ship can. Remove that, nobody will fly them.

Well you have some useful points . no they shouldn't be able to swap on the fly...
Prices will have to be reduced down to 200mil at most including subs .. and subs need to be cheap to allow switching to be viable .. also remove rigs from T3's entirely they should be about subs only also reduces price and makes switching subs easier going from armour to shields for example.
i think 120mil should be the price really all-in-including hull and subs and mods.
Also you are wrong in terms of multiple roles at the same time can be useful and viable ... think a T3 cruiser with e-war and logi bonuses ... sounds like a nice combo to me ... or links and e-war. and logi perhaps depending how versatile they make them.
Oh and yes remove the SP loss but they will have to increase training time multipliers to compensate i would expect/hope.

bigger isn't always better..

"Flexibility" isn't much of a strong point for a hull. Hasn't CCP learned from the whole split weapons thing? No one's gonna fly a ship that can be a subpar X or Y, they'll just find a ship that's specialized in what they need. If T3s just become inferior HACs/recons/logi, no one's gonna fly them; they'll just dock up and switch to a HAC/recon/logi as needed

"Flexibility" is not an advantage in EVE; the best ships and fits in the game are specialized and focused

A less skilled fleet of anything should be torn down by the more skilled fleet, unless the latter is flown by morons. Where is the problem here?

Drakes were the most overrated ship in the game for a long time and the nerf was completely unnecessary with the introduction of tier 3s

I dont't quite follow all your points but I get this one 100%.

I worry that after heavy nerfing, T3s will be able to fill any T2 cruiser role with 80% (or whatever amount) effectiveness. Well, that's great, but that means that we'll have a very expensive ship that at any one time performs only nearly as well as the T2 it's mimicking. Even if you could have the T3s perform equally well as any T2, that still begs the question "Why would I spend 2-3x more and risk skillpoints to do the same thing?"

Are strategic cruisers going to become one of those facets of the game that people just train all 25 days (ish?) of subsystem training just for that extra 2% of whatever on their fit compared to an analogous T2? That makes for dull game progression.

The fact that it's one single hull that can be fit many different ways is largely irrelevant. The niche T3s fill isn't one of a cruiser that can be setup many ways, it's of a cruiser that outperforms all other cruisers in line with its price and risk of operation. If it didn't, nobody would fly them except for luls and ISK burning.

I have to ask, if T3s are rebalanced to become the versatile cruisers that can perform nearly as well as any T2, then why are you going to buy one? What justification will you have for training the skills, buying the subsystems, and risking the skillpoints to do something that there is already a T2 capable of doing better (or even equally well).

Obviously these ships need a nerf. In some places they soar SO far ahead of their T1/2 counterparts it's ridiculous. But making them underperform or even be matched by T2s will make them largely pointless. I think there needs to be some kind of safeguard (I dont know how it would best be implemented, perhaps with certain subsystems bonuses interacting with each other?) to limit how much a T3 can excel in a role and introduce larger weaknesses to different setups.

The problem is that they do not fit into their class of hull. Much like the dram pre nerf they are simply far too good compared to everything else. So good that they even out class ship hulls above them, the drake is just one example of a BC that is outclassed at its own job by a t3 cruiser.


Most HACs don't look nearly as bad when you take t3s out of the picture.

Indeed although ABC's still overshadow HACS too much until they get nerfed this will still be a problem.

That's bull.

Chances are, the T1 would actually cost more because: (1) It is refinable to more minerals so it has a higher intrinsic price floor built-in and (2) Absolutely no one would ever make them since X-Type is so much better, in every way, then T2 and invention would be the only reason to make meta 0 T1 mods.